


Things Are Broken

by aralias



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Remixed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-19
Updated: 2011-04-19
Packaged: 2017-10-18 09:55:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/187662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aralias/pseuds/aralias
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The fireplace doesn't turn.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Things Are Broken

He is surprised when the fireplace doesn’t turn. For a moment, a brief moment, obviously, but still a definite moment, he really had thought he was that lucky. Just for a moment. Now, he jumps off the left andiron and bounds over to Reinette, who is standing, hands clasped in front of her, watching him.

“Nah,” he says. “Nice try, but this connection’s dead like all the rest. Looks like you’re stuck with me, after all.”

Then he takes her hand and grins, so that she won’t see that his hearts have just broken, and allows himself to be led away.

*

Rose stands and waits and watches the broken window. When her legs get tired, she sits instead, but she doesn’t stop watching, because she knows he will be back any minute and she doesn't want to miss it. Every so often, Mickey wanders over with a jumper or a sandwich, and then he watches with her for a while. He hasn’t asked how they’re going to get home again, and, even though Rose hasn’t said anything at all since the Doctor left two days ago, she hopes Mickey knows she’s grateful for that.

After about a week, she says “thanks” when he brings her a cup of tea in the morning. After three weeks, she follows him back into the TARDIS and they play card games on the console room floor: whist, rummy, patience. Mickey explains that there’s enough food to last for however long they need, and the TARDIS isn’t showing any signs of powering down so there’s running water and heat and stuff. Rose gives her mum a call and doesn’t tell her the Doctor’s gone and they’re stuck in the future with no way of getting back. Then she starts crying into the phone and has to hang up.

A month passes by and they survive. Rose even laughs one day when Mickey, heating beans in a microwave, jokes that he’s been in training for this his whole life without noticing. By the time they’ve been there four months, they’re chatting properly again, and so they miss the clatter outside in the 51st century spaceship. But the TARDIS is still watching, and all the dashboard lights start pulsing.

Rose nods at Mickey and he picks up the fire-extinguisher they kept handy just in case the robots ever came back. There is silence, then an American voice yells, “Hello? _Rose? Mickey?_ Anyone home?” and Rose runs outside, without looking back, and into the arms of Captain Jack Harkness.

“Hello. How’ve you been?” he says, without letting go of her.

“Not bad,” Rose says into his waistcoat. "I'm probably not going to eat baked beans again for a while, but otherwise no real complaints. You?”

“Well, I died, but then I came back to life, which I gather is fairly unusual, so no complaints from me either,” Jack says. With more tact than she would have given him credit for, he lowers his voice before he says, “you know, you should really talk to him” into her hair. He hugs her again quickly and then lets go of her and wanders over to where Mickey is leaning awkwardly against the TARDIS doors.

Finally, Rose looks at the handsome Victorian gentleman who is now the Doctor. He has been waiting politely for her to finish saying whatever she had to say to Jack - so unlike either of her Doctors - and now he steps towards her. She sees that he is wearing white gloves that match a brilliant handkerchief folded in the breast pocket of his dark suit. It looks, for a moment, like he might hug her too, and everything will be all right after all, but then he stops, still a meter away from her, and just smiles sadly.

“I’m sorry,” he says, without saying whether he is sorry that they have had to fend for themselves for four months, or sorry for leaving in the first place. And Rose realises it doesn’t matter, because she doesn’t forgive him for either.

“So, this is, what, your eleventh… twelfth regeneration?” she says instead.

“Twelfth,” the Doctor agrees. “Old age the first time, then I ran afoul of a yeti in 1884. I had a bit of trouble convincing Jack it was still me when I finally tracked him down, but he seemed pleased enough not to be stuck in the nineteenth century, though no more than I was. He was only there for a week.”

Rose nods. “How long…” she begins, before her voice cracks.

“A hundred and thirty five years,” the Doctor says, and he looks suddenly terribly sad and familiar. “There was no one else left with the right technology, so I had to wait for Jack to arrive with his burned out vortex manipulator.”

“Oh,” Rose says.

“How long were you waiting?”

“Four months.”

“Ah. I was aiming for four hours. Sorry.”

“Yer,” she says.

She doesn’t ask him whether it was worth it, because she knows that he could never have stood by and watched someone die, knowing there was a way to save them. She knows, also, that she wouldn’t want him to, so she smiles at him now, so that he won’t see that her heart has broken. He nods and it is almost enough.

The TARDIS doors are still open and the Doctor offers her his arm without a trace of irony. Together they walk back into his ship.


End file.
